


Taboo

by DaemonxV



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Bad end, Drabble, Fake Fix-it, Guilt, M/M, Not Beta Read, Obsessive Behavior, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24653917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaemonxV/pseuds/DaemonxV
Summary: He can fix it. Of course. Why shouldn't he, when he had the means?Un-Beta-ed
Relationships: Kiryu "Joshua" Yoshiya & Sakuraba Neku, Kiryu "Joshua" Yoshiya/Sakuraba Neku
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Taboo

It takes him a long, long while before he gets a hang of the Taboo. At first, what he thought was like weaving or sewing was actually alot more like a three-dimensional print. Or, at least, it was some combination thereof. The reflected thoughts and imagination, the building blocks of the soul were spun in such a way that they knitted together and through each other like pearls.

Neku never had a mind for fabrics, but he had more than enough time to learn. Eventually, Shiki becomes sophisticated enough to assist him with that. It almost chokes him up to see her still helping him after all this time.

The complexity of the human heart is... tricky, to say the least. Beat took him more than a couple of tries to get quite right. In spite of his simple demeanor, his overall character was far more nuanced than he ought have given the boarder credit for. Rhyme’s appearance helped keep a convincing enough charade. Neither were perfect, but they synergized well with each other.

In his grand scheme, he attempted to build others to hone his tooth on and brush up his skills. He mostly tried to keep to people who were either not of the UG or already previously erased. Sota and Nao had earned a staple position, and much like Beat and Rhyme, they were better in each other’s presence. Shuto was a presence hard to ignore. In the end, he crafted Itaru to keep them occupied, dumping an actual bagful of pins for them to slam with.

Ai, Mina, the storefront owners, even Eiji and Makoto found their way into his secret little mini-Shibuya menagerie (even if he thought Makoto was better off plucked of his speech privileges...). He had his own little secret garden, living and thriving to his design.

His true and ultimate goal proved rather arduous. 

The complications were more than he realized. His own personal feelings came to cloud his vision... But his vision of what? What was he looking to build here? A willful enigma, a liar, a scoundrel. Someone whose true nature he’d never really learned, because they’d intended to deceive him from the very start. Many attempts were botched, because he simply found none of them genuine enough. How was he meant to capture that in someone who’d never revealed himself to be?

His last-ditch effort became to just... Let it pass him. He’d never be able to make a perfect simulacrum. Hell, no one in his little pocket space was 100% the persons they’d emulated. Why should Josh, right?

In the end, he simply decides to just water him down to “Yoshiya”, and set him out to observe, as though watching a simulation unfold. He didn’t exactly hate this version of the blonde. He might even say he found him cute. Cheek-pinchingly cute. It was unlike Neku to find that endearing, but there was something to be said about hearing that soft, song-bird voice break into an awkward, shy laughter, as opposed to the sneaky and sass laden one he still heard at night in his darker moments. Maybe he was projecting just a little...

Neku couldn’t return to the RG, or interact with anyone there, Mr. H was clear. But this space wasn’t particularly either to begin with. A loophole, perhaps, and a contrivance. Not that he wasn’t pushing the limits of his position by any measure, but in the end, who had to know? And when he could listen to Shiki and Beat arguing, or entertain Yoshiya shyly (slyly?) try to close his hand over his, maybe he didn’t care enough about whether or not what would happen if he was discovered.

Which, he supposes brings them to this moment here. Hanekoma’s expression was hard. Not particularly furious, more sympathetic than anything. “Boss... What have you done?” the unique impression of _“you done fucked up, Composer.”_ went without verbalization.

Neku shrugged. A twitch of a smile causing his mouth to crack. His worn, calloused hands squeezed the soft, smooth one in his palm. The absurdity of the situation gave way to mirth, as Neku explained himself to his Producer,

“I fixed it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just some RP inspired musings from a timeline where Neku "won" the final game...  
> He tries to grasp what he once had lost.
> 
> Pretty sloppy drabble, I dashed it off in 30-ish minutes.


End file.
